Away from Hoth
by Sceloglaux
Summary: Leaving Hoth is quite the long journey, and it doesn't necessarily end on Bespin. Luckily Leia's got plenty of time, a supportive smuggler, and a convenient switch to turn the obnoxious droid off.


Leia can pinpoint the approximately exact date of a thousand and thirty days ago as the day she met one Han Solo and her life took a complete u-turn for the worse, and although the two events aren't necessarily linked by a cause and consequence relation, they are joined together in defining her new idea of normality - if "normal" were an appropriate word for anything that happened as of late.  
Being fully aware of such fact and never having expected to experience ordinariness again, her composure is momentarily shattered when she reaches the Falcon's main hold and is met with the sight of Han - self-appointed Rebellion Hearttrob, Nuisance to Many - comfortably sat at the table with no vest in sight, his sock-clad left ankle resting on the opposite knee, holding a book in the hand that is usually wrist-deep in his ship's guts and turning flimsiplast pages with the other.  
Well, Leia's composure is what's kept her functioning for a while now, and it demands revenge for such a blow. Never mind that he's too engrossed in his reading to have noticed.

"You read books?", she fires, mocking him with a tone of fake disbelief.

Han doesn't flinch, but he'd clearly not noticed her standing there; nonetheless it takes him a mere second to form a sarcastic grin. "I'm trying to quit."

It's their first conversation since that fated kiss in the circuitry bay and even being in his line of vision sparks a tiny bolt of electricity in her nerves. It is precisely what Leia feared from the very moment she learned they were stuck on a wreck of a ship for goodness knows how long, their sole company a Wookiee who would likely try his very best to keep out of their way and a droid with an anxiety disorder.

Still, he hasn't tried anything since then; in fact, he's been oddly well-behaved – almost _nice men_ – and that in itself is more unsettling than any dopey pick-up line he could ever throw at her; she's pretty sure she's already heard his whole repertoire anyway. And it's also irritating, because how dare he act like nothing happened – she's come in here with a half-conscious plan to lash out at him, to start a fight and cut and draw blood to appease the part of her that's forgotten how to deal with emotions other than rage, but she can't do that when he's patting the couch, mildly inviting her to sit down next to him. She complies but keeps her distance.

"It's called "The Subtle Knife"", he says.

She didn't ask, but she already knows he's perfectly capable of holding a conversation by himself.

"I've never heard about it."

"Really? You're the one who went to college," he smirks. Leia rolls her eyes.

"It's about a tiny princess and the gorgeous scoundrel she's madly in love with-" Han laughs when she smacks his arm, but the deed's done already, the corner of her lips is turning upwards against her will. It's almost scary, how easily he can dissipate her anger with so little effort.

"What is it _really_ about?"

"Ah, Your Worship, there's probably a reason you didn't learn about this in school. The guy who wrote this, you see-"

He launches into a convoluted explanation that has her lost by the second sentence, until she's only listening to the sound of his voice like it's a wordless lullaby.

If he notices her head's found a rest on his arm, he doesn't mention it.

 **o**

In the novels she used to read in happier times, whatever drama had been brewing would always reach its acme in literarily sensible moments, and if one was knowledgeable enough in the art of story crafting, it would be obvious why the pivotal moment had to happen then and there and what message the author had wanted to get across.

But since the writer that's holding the strings of Leia's life is clearly an amateur, or has no idea what they're doing, or both, her own trauma decides to catch up with her in the most banal of occasions.

Han finds her sitting on the floor of his cabin, an unblinking stare fixed on several of his neatly-folded shirts strewn across his bed, breathing like she couldn't quite get enough oxygen in her lungs. He looks at her, then at the shirts she was supposed to be picking from to replace her snowsuit, then at her again, before crouching at her side.

"Princess? I get my fashion sense ain't all it could be, but, really – is it worth getting a panic attack over?"

Leia makes a choked laugh.

"What's wrong?", he asks reaching for her shaking hand.

"I have no idea," and she really doesn't – she'd been rifling through a box of his spare clothes when it hit her that the last time she'd ever taken the time to put any thought into what she'd wear had been on Alderaan, before living had turned into _just one more mission_ ; and if she ever somehow got to the end of those missions, would she just - be expected to fall back into everything that living entailed? Would she _remember_ how to do it all, from picking clothes to dealing with the emotions she's put on hold until she can afford to face them?

Perhaps this temporary identity she's settled in while waiting until she could deal with what was going on in her real one isn't going to let itself be dispelled as she thought; perhaps _this_ is the real her now. And if she doesn't even have herself to come back to once the war is over, why in the blazes is she doing all this?

She wouldn't know where to start explaining to Han, but fortunately she doesn't have to. Everything she's kept locked inside takes over at once and she feels her eyes sting under his perceptive gaze that says _It's all right, Princess. I can take anything you throw at me._

As she - finally - cries her pain out, Leia imagines that each tear is a single brick of the wall that had sprung up around her emotions one thousand and forty two days ago.

 _Plic_ , goes numbness.

 _Plic_ \- that's irritability.

Then her denial doesn't _plic_ anymore, because it's sapped up by Han's shirt instead. He holds her through it all, never speaking, relieved to see her facing her emotions, even though he isn't sure what prompted it. Han knows that this isn't going to magically fix the parts of her that have been crushed, nothing will, but he hopes beyond hope he'll get to be around and help her build something new on the debris.

 **o**

The next days are filled with a tense undercurrent as Leia tries to find a new stability, her moods swinging wildly from elation to depression – much like a wave of extreme amplitude, oscillating between crests and troughs, Han figures. Not that he'd ever tell the Princess he's comparing her to a sine wave – his faith in figures of authority may have been buried long ago, but he trusted his Academy professors when they told him poetry would never be his strong suit.

More than anything she seems to dislike being alone. She probably thinks he hasn't noticed how she always makes sure he's in her visual field, how she seeks his company and touch – how she's no longer holding herself back. Han is way too delighted to see her finally reach out to even think of teasing her about it; personal pettiness has long since given way to genuine care. She also can't ever seem to feel warm enough, for which reason she's taken to (chastely) sharing his bed at night. The worst of her moods makes her feel as cold as she was on Hoth, even though the Falcon's heating is one of the few things that work (for now), she muses once lying on her back next to him – and _hell, your Worship_ , _maybe you need some time to thaw off, right? Just because you remember having been warm at some point, you can't feel warm by thinkin' about it hard enough. Maybe all you needed was a ship and her dashing Captain to get you off that ice ball, after all.  
_ Leia rolls her eyes good-naturedly as she turns on her side and _this_ is exactly what his academy professors meant about his poetry skills, but his snarky reply has precisely the effect he hoped – destructive interference.

 **o**

Seeing the results brought on by her being forced to share quarters with him for a while, Han almost wishes he'd allowed Wes to go through with his plan to shut them in a broom closet until "they'd blown some steam off". Not that it has been easy, but pushing through days of tension and fights and tears has been absolutely worth it and he'd be willing to brave it again and again if it means Leia will stay relaxed as she is now.

The princess found him sitting in his chair in the cockpit over an hour ago while "looking for Chewie" (they could both hear the Wookie snore all the way from his cabin, but – just this once - he pretended to fall for her excuse); she's currently curled up in his lap, listening with her eyes closed as he recounts tales from his misadventures across the galaxy, interjecting a question every now and then.

She's subtle, every bit the consumed politician, but it's clear she's trying to steer him from the well-rehearsed stories - amusing, impersonal, safe - to the parts of his past that really matter. Han is perfectly aware, and for the first time he's willing to give up - hell, he _wants_ her to know; for all his unrepentant bluster, there is a tiny bit of him that needs to know she's fine with everything he is. Throughout his life he's had to feed lies and half-truths to nearly everyone he's crossed paths with; there will be none of that with Leia. She's going to leave that chair with enough material to write his biography – Han Solo: The Good, The Bad, and The Weird.

So he tells her at last - of Shrike and Dewlanna, of the decades he's spent trying to ascend to a respectable existence only for one thing or another to kick him back down, and eventually he brings up Bria, too; he makes light of it all the best he can, because he's discovered that whatever kind of shit he's been through was worth it if he can make Leia laugh about it.

Neither of them knows how long they've spent trading stories as the light of countless moons and stars drifted over their faces, but when they finally do get up after dozens of _just one more story_ , it feels like both of their lifetimes.

 **o**

Gossiping and fantasizing about a future love life is one of the few things royalty and common people will do in the same way – Leia is no exception. She remembers long sweet hours spent chatting the night away with Winter in her huge bed in the Palace, the tented blanket over their heads encasing them in a safe bubble removed from the rest of the galaxy. In hindsight she knows there's no way Bail didn't know what they were up to, and in fact he could probably hear their whispering from the hall in the silence of night; yet at that time it was like nothing could possibly interrupt them.

It was their time to come together after a whole day spent separately, to imagine what lay ahead – often in the most mundane sense of it. Aware that their marriages would likely be political, the two girls would let their imaginations run free where their lives couldn't, and discuss books and holos and crushes, often all at the same time.

Work would bring them apart for increasingly longer stretches of time as they grew up, but it could never break their tacit agreement to keep each other up to date with their lives _and neither will death itself_ , Leia decides the evening she finally decides to follow, no, gently urge Han towards his cabin without breaking the kiss they started in the galley. Neither knows who's really leading whom, but she definitely popped the first button on his shirt open; his response is a smile that says _We won't regret this, Sweetheart_ \- while the gentle, tight grip on her hips can't help adding _Finally_.

The Winter she carries in her heart is the first and only one allowed to hear the intimate details of their sublight trip. Late at night, in the time when dreams and reality coexist, Leia is back under the tented blanket, whispering in response to her sister's needling, _Oh Winter, how can I possibly describe the liberation that is deciding to let up on every brake, allowing yourself to forget past and future and conditional. Seeing the delight in his eyes when he realizes you're really going to do this._  
 _Letting him take your clothes off, from both of you – the awkwardness doesn't last long when you've already bared your soul to each other, and his smile takes care of the rest._  
 _And you were right, the first time is not the best time, but you don't know that when it happens; and the second isn't either, but the third is better and the fourth makes you scream despite the Wookiee in the next room and then everything that comes afterwards you can't describe, because at that point your disbelief that it could feel even better has already been proved wrong several times over and is replaced with complicity and a healthy dose of mischievousness and, last but not least, an improved sense of hearing, which is fundamental when you're set on christening every flat surface of a tiny ship without giving a show to the copilot. I'm sure you'd laugh if you could see me now – try as I might to keep some composure we end up making out more often than not, in the gun well, in the cockpit as he tries to teach me for the thirteenth time how to pilot the Falcon, even in the maintenance pit once (it took no less than two days to locate and remove all the grease stains from ourselves). I like to think it's only for lack of other things to do to stave off boredom, but I'm probably delusional. Besides, it appears I'm not alone in this – and really, everyone who's known him for longer than a week has figured he's not the tough and uncaring criminal he pretends to be, but I could have never imagined he would spend hours brushing my hair or dozing off with his head on my lap or_ _ _–_ I think I heard him whispering the cheesiest endearments in my ear while I was half asleep – either that, or my Corellian improved so much while I wasn't looking that I dreamed it all. The man is an absolute sap, sis, but don't ever tell him I said that.  
Remember that quote Mother used to like, "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been"? It is true that Jabba might kill him, or we may not survive the war, but at least I'll have sweet memories, Winter, not regrets._

Leia smothers quickly whatever sadness threatens to taint those moments - for the first time in three years, the princess is determined to live, here and now, live enough for her sister, too.

 **o**

One late night, when the skin he's touching feels like warm patches anchoring her to the waking world, she feels his grin against her shoulder and she knows she can kiss sleep goodbye for the moment.

"Sweetheart? Remember when you said you didn't know where I was getting my delusions?"

Leia's mind articulates a perfectly diplomatic response that's supposed to deny the notion and shut the teasing off all in the span of twelve words and a comma, but drowsiness intercepts it halfway to her mouth, so all that leaves her throat is a long-suffering groan.

"Well, looks like my delusions are lying naked in bed with me."

She shoves at him with every intention of pushing him out of said bed. Han, who is twice her weight, laughs victoriously. Until his knee hits the floor, that is.

 **o**

Standing in the cockpit in her thermal suit once again is odd, Leia decides. It's way too warm, but it's not like she could stroll down on the planet she sees looming through the transparisteel wearing Han's shorts and a tank top – much as he'd like that.

Han's grousing about that jumpsuit she hasn't worn in months (although most of the whining has been directed at her newly-braided hair) hides a wariness she can understand far too well; the bubble they've lived in is wobbling and neither of them is eager to find out what is coming next. One thing's for sure, though: she's leaving Hoth behind.

 **o**

 **A/N:** I can't believe it took me a whole day to notice that ffnet had eaten up the section breaks, but I've edited them back in. Sorry about it!  
I also published this on ao3 as Ravenhill; and you can find me on tumblr as singing-supper in case you feel like chatting some more about star wars and these two nerds.


End file.
